[colinng]

They will maliciously comply. They might even have 4 sockets for the 512-bit wide systems. But then they’ll keep the SSD devices soldered - just like they’ve done for a long time. Or cover them with epoxy, or rig it with explosives. That’ll show you for trying to upgrade! How dare you ruin the beautiful fat profit margin that our MBAs worked so hard to design in?!?

[7speter]

Apple lines perimeter of the nand chips on modern mac minis with an array of tiny capacitors, so even the crazy people with heater boards can’t unsolder the nand and replace them with higher density NAND.

[wtallis]

Have you not looked at the NAND packages on any regular SSDs? Tiny decoupling caps alongside the NAND is pretty standard practice.

[cjk2]

This is normal. They are called decoupling capacitors and are there to provide energy if the SSD requires short bursts of it. If you put them any further away the bit of wire between them and the gate turns into an inductor and has some somewhat undesirable characteristics.

Also replacing them is not rocket science. I reckon I could do one fine (used to do rework). The software side is the bugbear.

[cjk2]

This is hyperbole. They are replaceable. It's just more difficult.